13

Her head was spinning, her thoughts and mind trying hard not to cave in on itself. She didn't understand when Ana had betrayed her, or if Torrance had just done it subconsciously, but there were still pieces missing. 

There were hundreds of little bits of her memory still fighting to the surface and she was certain, somewhere in that lost timeline, Ana had gone behind her back, selling her soul to the very organization that tore her apart from the inside out.

The Hydra agents that had come for her had handcuffs around her wrists, along with thick black gloves that were so tough it was difficult to move her fingers. She was thankful that the agents left Natasha where she was, hopefully thinking the other woman was dead. She could get help, warn the others.

Bucky wasn't as lucky.

It was easy to take him back, speaking hushed words for only him to hear. He was under their command within five minutes and Torrance feared she would be next. How would she be able to get through this now that Ana wasn't on her side? Would she be able to take back control if they cracked her head open again?

The agents jostled Torrance to her feet, half dragging her towards their ship that waited. She had a hard time believing what they could truly do without Zola. Who would be controlling them now? Who would be their commander? Their new leader?

She didn't get another thought in before something hard and heavy came in contact with the base of her skull.

~

"Please stop!"

Screaming.

"I can't take this anymore!"

Her hands in tight fists from the pain.

"Please!"

Can they not hear her? Can they not see what they're doing?

"Zola, please, for the love of god, stop this!"

Gun shots rang through her ears like a haunted echo. The blood she saw was warm and sticky and surprisingly very inviting. All of it, was calling out to her. Torrance, Ana, all of it singing an enchanting toon so dark it seeped into her pores. 

"I can't do it-I can't kill them for you!"

"You'll do it. You can't stop the urge, the feelings in your gut and head. Give in and it won't tear you apart."

Blurred vision. Heartbeat pulsing in her throat and ears. 

"Let me go!"

Torrance woke strapped to a chair similar to ones you'd see in a dentist's office. The room was empty, save for the medical equipment and the chair she was struggling against. The lights were white and blinding, reminding her of an operation room and all that it was missing was the open gallery for those to watch and applaud and congratulate. 

Her ankles were strapped to the bottom of the chair, her wrists also bound to the arm rests. There was a large strap holding down her middle, keeping her locked in tight to the chair. She was surprised to find herself barefoot and wearing black joggers and a sports bra. She understood why she wore no shirt, it was easier to inject and cut her with it all out in the open.

She hadn't even noticed the man who stood behind her and she could barely crane her neck to see. Her head was taped down to the head of the chair by a large strap. When the man came around to look her in the eyes, it was one she didn't recognize.

"Who the hell are you?" she spat. He was skinny and tall with a head of brown hair. He had narrowed eyes that reminded her of ones of a snake.

He grinned, his hands folded behind him. He wore a simple black suit layered with a white lab coat. "What? You don't recognize the familiar looks?"

"The what?"

"You knew my mentor."

"Who? Zola?" There was no way this random man could be related to that old crazed genius, Torrance thought to herself. 

"No, but you're close," he laughed, voice deep with an old german accent. "He did train me for some time, though. Zola was like family, a credible source to all that I know today. Yet I'm surprised you don't remember him. You and the prized Captain tried to defeat him."

Her mind was racing, going back through old timelines and faces and frowned.

"Did you almost expect me to look like him?" he said with a shrug before walking over to the metal tray sitting on a table. He picked up a small book, one similar to the one she saw the Hydra agents read from as they turned Bucky. "He had a red skull, after all."

Her eyes snapped towards his and he grinned.

"Ah, so you do remember?"

"Of course I do," she hissed, barring her teeth in a scowl. She didn't even know the man had children, much less a woman who'd want him and all his...red glory. Maybe glory wasn't the right term, but red sure was. He was red as the devil. 

"My mentor, Johann Schmidt, helped start all of this. Sure, it was Zola who tried to create you and others like you, but Schmidt, the great Red Skull, he made Hydra the way it is today. He created an empire," he flipped through the pages of the little book. "The very empire you worked for."

She didn't want to remember what she did to all of those people she killed. How she murdered at their command. How Ana ever wanted to go back was something she'd never understand. These men killed her sister and she's running back to them like a sad puppy. 

"I learned as much as I could from him when I was a boy. He was almost like a father to me," he explained in a rather lazy tone. "I was able to rework old serums, try to recreate what Zola and Erskine had before but without those notes, it was difficult but I got lucky. I mean, don't I look great for being nearly eighty?" He gave her a little twirl and she was shocked, the man before her look to be mid thirties, not at all the old man he truly was. "Schmidt taught me so much before you and the Captain got involved. Zola tried to teach me more but we couldn't do much without the real serum and the notes and everything lost inside the jet that Captain sank." 

He waited for her to respond and he smirked, his lips pulling back to show a set of perfect teeth. He gave it a few more seconds before asking coolly, "Are you surprised? So surprised you can't even speak?"

She was annoyed. Also a tad bit fascinated that he was able to create something that could reverse the affects of time, perhaps he had just frozen his molecules, all his atoms stopped perfectly like hers. But she pushed that aside, being far more annoyed than interested in the logistics of it all.

"I'm not surprised because I don't fucking care," she snapped, lying. God, of course she cared, she cared to the point that it made her blood boil. "I don't care about any of this."

He ignored her comments, rolling his eyes and coming to stand before her. "I'd just like to thank you, before I begin. Without your help, well Ana's specifically, we would've never found the information on the serum but there's just one issue."

"What? Can you not read the notes?" she sneered with a smile.

"Well, that's it exactly."

We encoded it, silly, Ana's voice spoke in her head and Torrance suddenly had the urge to laugh out loud. To laugh in her face and in this man's because they didn't understand it. Without translations, they would never figure it out.

Do you not remember what the notes were about? Torrance asked silently. 

Barely. We did it together, we need your notes. Your codes.

Fat chance you're going to get them.

Not willingly, but with force? Ana was laughing, the echoes hurting the inner workings of her head.

"Fighting with yourself, are you?" the man cooed. "Too bad you can't just give them to me willingly, we don't want to hurt you. You're a powerful asset, one we've been hunting for some time now."

"You just weren't looking hard enough."

"We wiped you and then you had to get yourself involved with the Avengers, with the last remaining hope of S.H.I.E.L.D. So yes, it was difficult to find you after all of this time."

"Well, sorry to break it to you," she smiled, gripping the arms of the chair. "I don't remember much from my old days."

"You'll remember," he matched her smile, feeling like he had the upper hand. "Sooner or later, we'll force those memories out of you."

He nodded towards something behind her and she tried to catch a glimpse of what or who was lurking. The new man came forward, grabbing a needle and inserting it into her arm before taping the IV down.

"Enjoy your little trip down memory lane," he told her when the clear liquid began to flow through the tube.

When this new serum was finally sucked into her veins, it burned. 

It felt like liquid fire flowing through her bloodstream. She couldn't suppress her screams as her eyes began welling with warm tears that fell down her cheeks in desperate drops. There was a pounding in her head like fists banging against her skull, trying to fight their way out and into the open. Like someone was breaking their way free.

She could barely recognize the fact that she was unconscious before the memories started. Fresh and unwanted and cursed.

"Are you sure this will work?" Ana asked a loud. She was alone, or at least it appeared so to those walking past. She was  in a small park at an old stone table, talking to the woman inside her head.

"Of course it will," Torrance responded. "It's my code, after all. I'll be the only one who can figure it out."

"But what about me?" Ana asked. 

The wind was picking up, bringing with it stray leaves and dust. There was an approaching war and she knew the wind was a warning. Be cautious, be careful, and don't tell a soul. No one could know what they were about to do, no one needed to know but them.

"You'll forget, like you always do," Torrance laughed and of course she was right. Ana never remembered much, not with Zola always poking through her head and wiping her clean. It was something she knew would cost her everything later down the line, how it would probably end up being her undoing. 

"Do you think if they ever find this...they'll make more of us?" she asked the other girl inside her head. "That they'll take innocent people and corrupt them?"

"Of course they will," Torrance said back and Ana wished they could see each other, face to face. Although, she'd just end up looking into her own eyes. "Now, follow along with what numbers correspond to what letters, alright?"

The pair went through the notes, converting them to their numeric system that Torrance had created. She had explained briefly it was something her and Karina had done together, to hide their secret notes and letters from their parents. Cursing their father, hating parts of their mother, their ideas of running away.

Ana wrote as Torrance spoke and to people walking by, it looked as if she was alone and not at all listening to the voice whispering inside her brain as if she was sitting right beside her. The code was brilliant and Ana wished she had been the one to think of it but she knew better, she was a liability and Torrance knew it.

Torrance always was the smarter one. 

Ana often wondered if they had just been twins in another life, just split embryos, just as they were split consciousnesses. One part wished Zola could transfer her out of Torrance and into another body, so the pair could live separately and not as one unit forced to shut down for the other to shine. 

But, of course, it would never be that easy. It would never work because, after all, they were the same person with a twisted brain and thoughts. Two personas. Two minds. Connected solely through the other and without one? There'd be none.

"Done?" Ana asked, lifting her pencil from the paper and Torrance hummed happily. "What do we do with the original copies?"

"Burn them. Burn them all."

And so she did. 

The papers burned and shriveled into black nothingness. She felt superior then, she had the upper hand. They would never be able to crack their code, much less even find where they'd hidden the notes. 

They wouldn't be able to find it without them. Hydra needed them, as much as they hated to admit it, they were the key to everything.

Torrance's eyes opened and she was choking on air.

She was still strapped down and all she wanted to do was claw her way free and run from this place. Run and never come back.

"Enjoy your little trip?" the man asked with a grin. He sat on a small stool across from her, this time not wearing his lab coat. "You were out for about an hour."

She didn't answer.

He didn't seem bothered as he stood with a shrug and asked, "If you'll just cooperate, we'll get you out of here in no time."

She spoke this time, suddenly curious, "Where are you going to take me?"

"Well, after we bring Anastasia home, you'll be put back into the system," he smiled as he explained. "There are just a few people we need to get rid of and you're our best bet at getting it done."

She scowled. "Like who?" 

"Besides majority of the Avengers?" 

No, she thought to herself, he can't say it. Don't you dare say his name.

"But most of all, Steve Rogers needs to die," he smiled darkly, waving one hand through the air as he added, "He's been a thorn in our sides for far too long, and what's better than having his best friend landing the final blows?" He shrugged, as if none of it effected him one bit. He made a move to leave the room, standing in the doorway before speaking over his shoulder, "We'll leave you alone with your thoughts, give you some time to think by yourself about whether or not you'll help us, because if you don't? We can always find more invasive ways to get the information out."

"Go to hell," she hissed, struggling against her restraints. She was stuck here, as much as she hated it, there was nowhere else to go.

"My name is Leon, by the way, and I hope that woman inside your head gives you the push we all need."

He left and with him the other agent did too, the one who had been silently monitoring her vitals. She didn't know whether or not there were any cameras in the room so she had to be careful if she was going to start speaking to Ana, so she decided to keep it inside her head, incase there were agents lurking outside the doors, listening.

Torrance closed her eyes, trying to picture Ana standing before her. She would be an absolute mirror of herself but it was better seeing someone speak other than hearing the drifting voice rattle from god knows where.

I can't let them have the codes, Torrance snapped inside her mind. There's no way in hell I'm going to give them up without a fight. 

Ana stood before her, identical to Torrance. Are you alone?

I think so.

Then you gotta trust me on this one, give them something when they return. 

Like what? Torrance murmured. How was she supposed to trust her when she'd betrayed them all. Probably even betrayed Karina in the end.

Just a tiny bit of the code.

What? No fucking way I'm doing that-

You've gotta just trust me, okay? It has to seem like you got tricked, that I lied to you and told them where the notes were-

But you did. You told them, without me even knowing!

Ana looked annoyed, at least that's how Torrance pictured her. Arms crossed tightly over her chest, lips pulled taut across her face. I was able to contact them when you were unconscious, it was hard to pull off but it worked, didn't it?

Yeah, no shit it worked, Torrance hissed. She wanted to wrap her hands around the other girls neck but it would simply be her own. There was no way to hurt her without hurting herself. 

They just need to believe that I did this on purpose, that this was my plan all along. They need to believe I'm on their side.

And why do they need to think that? It was slowly clicking for Torrance, how if they trusted her, they wouldn't ever suspect her of turning against them. They wouldn't realize it was her, destroying them from the inside out. And they needed to believe that Torrance had cracked under the pressure of both Ana and Hydra, and give them a little tiny bit of information, to get the ball running.

We can finally burn this place to the ground, the two of us.

Torrance was smiling to herself and she wondered if Leon and the other agents could see her. If only they knew what was slowly being formed, how they would never see the double cross, the absolute trial of betrayal. 

Together, Torrance said before she called out into the open and empty room, "I'm ready to talk!"

She just didn't expect to see Bucky walk in first and suddenly, she wasn't so sure of herself or her plan. Because deadpan and empty eyed Bucky was one bump in the road that could bring the whole operation down. The one man who'd see through her character, with or without Hydra controlling him. 

Leon followed behind the bigger man with a great smile. "Didn't leave you in here for more than ten minutes and you're ready?"

She nodded, and her eyes were trained onto one person and one person alone. She needed to slam his head against the wall, maybe into the floor, potentially even into her knee. She needed him on their side, her side. But first, she needed Hydra to bring Ana out and then, and only then, would their little mission finally begin to start. 

"I'm ready to cooperate, I'll give you what you need."

_______________________

Notes:

I hope y'all are liking the story so far!! 

Hmm maybe we'll finally get a glimpse into Ana and Bucky's past ?? :))

Also, Leon is not a real Hydra agent from the movies or comics. He's completely made up by me.